Parish Church Of St Andrew

Parish Church of St Andrew

This parish church at North Weald Bassett was built around 1330 and subsequently repaired after a fire in 1965. The west tower dates to around 1500. The building is constructed of flint rubble with some brick and freestone admixture, dressed with limestone and clunch, and roofed with handmade red clay tiles. The tower is built of red brick in English bond.

The church comprises a nave with a south chapel and south aisle, a chancel, a north vestry, and a west tower. The chancel and vestry were rebuilt in 1867, with major repairs undertaken in 1965.

The nave features three 19th-century windows in the north wall, the middle one containing a substantial area of 14th-century glass, primarily of tabernacle work. Between the two western windows is the north doorway, which is 14th-century with chamfered jambs, a two-centred arch and moulded label. The door itself is probably original, with vertical boards on the outside and ornamental iron hinges of stylised C-form dating to the 13th or 14th century. The door was reported by the RCHM to be battened on the inside but is now blocked by plaster.

The south arcade consists of five two-centred arches, the middle one narrower than the others, each with two chamfered orders and supported on octagonal columns with moulded capitals and responds and hollow-chamfered bases.

The south chapel features a gable end with a restored 14th-century window of three trefoiled ogee lights with tracery in a two-centred head. The splays and rear arch are moulded with internal label and 20th-century headstops. The south wall contains two restored 14th-century windows, each of two trefoiled ogee lights with tracery in a two-centred head, moulded labels and wrought-iron grids. The eastern window forms a stepped sedile. The wall also has a 14th-century piscina with trefoiled head and sexfoiled drain. The west wall of the chapel contains a two-centred arch of two chamfered orders opening into the south aisle.

The south aisle has one largely 19th-century window and a south doorway with double-chamfered jambs and a two-centred head with moulded label.

The west tower is square with diagonal buttresses and is entirely of around 1500 except for some modern repairs. The tower-arch is two-centred with four orders, moulded and plain, with responds each containing two shafts with continuous moulded capitals and spreading bases. The west window is mainly 19th-century except for its splays and rear arch. The west doorway has double-chamfered jambs and a two-centred arch of stone with moulded brick label. In the southwest angle is a winding stair with a chamfered doorway and Tudor arch, containing the original door with studded battens and strap-hinges.

The tower is built in four stages. The second and third stages originally constituted a priest's lodging. The second stage has a single-light window with three-centred arch in the west and south walls, and a fireplace with four-centred brick head in the north wall, its chimney not visible externally. The third stage has a similar window in each wall. This stage now contains the bells, though originally they occupied the fourth stage, which is undivided externally from the third stage and has a window in each wall of two four-centred lights under a four-centred head. A band of diaper work in blue flared headers appears on the south side of the fourth stage, with an indistinct pattern of headers lower down. An embattled parapet sits on a corbel-table of small segmental arches. Most of the floor structures are original. The roofs were rebuilt in 1965 on the model of 19th-century roofs.

The nave contains four floor slabs: to John Searle of Wheelers (1665) and his wife Mary (1676) in limestone; to Thomas Arrowsmith, Vicar of the parish (1705–6) and his wife Margaret (1702) in black marble with a shield of arms; to Reverend Mr Biscoe (1745) in black marble with a shield of arms; and to John Burrell (1805) and Anna Manning Burrell (1809) in black marble.

A brass is set in the blocked north doorway to Walter Larder (1606, the last two digits broken off) and his wife Marie (Nicholls), their three sons and two daughters, with figures in civil dress and a shield of arms.

The church contains six bells, the third by John Waylett (1712) and the fifth by Anthony Bartlet (1673).

A chancel screen, recorded by the RCHM, was removed after the fire of 1964 to a church in the diocese of Norwich. Medieval paintings on the north wall immediately west of the blocked north door were uncovered in 1964, considerably damaged, and were subsequently re-covered (report by Clive Rouse, 22 December 1964, in the National Monuments Record).